A Complete Guide to Local SEO

Local SEO is important. In fact, 46% of all searches on Google are local searches.

This means that if you are a local business and your local SEO is not well in place, you are missing out on opportunities every time locals search for your product online.

And many people are looking for it. About 89% of people search for local businesses on their smartphones at least once a week, and 58% search daily. From that search, 72% visit a store within a 5-mile radius.

If his local SEO is bad, he probably won't find these searchers.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a technique to increase the online visibility of a local business. Similar to organic SEO, but with an added geographic component. Specifically, we aim to rank highly on search engine results pages (SERPs) for local searches.

It doesn't make sense for a New York restaurant to rank high in Houston's local search results. I want people looking for a restaurant in New York to find it.

Therefore, improving your local SEO is essential if you want to increase your organic local traffic.

According to Moz's Local SEO Report, Google My Business signals, including proximity and keywords, are top ranking factors. These are the signals that help local businesses rank in the Google Triple Pack.

What is a "package"?

First, here are some free local SEO tips to help get your business noticed.

A Google triple pack is a collection of the top three local search results.

This used to be a 7-pack, but has been truncated to fit mobile search.

Your company should be there. So how do you get it? Here's a step-by-step guide to improving your local SEO.

• Create a contact page.
• Make phone numbers clickable on mobile devices.
• Add a map to your website.
• Include testimonials on your website.
• Use schema on your site.
• Claim Google My Business profile (and optimize).
• Claim social profiles.
• Create locally targeted content such as a list of local events.
• Prioritize getting more customer reviews.
• Build citations on local search engines, blogs, and local directories.
  

Don't worry. Each step is detailed below.

First, here are some free local SEO tips to help get your business noticed.

1. Optimize your website for local SEO

If your website isn't optimized properly, you'll struggle to boost your SERP.

Check out his SEO for your website now to see how it can be improved. In addition to standard SEO best practices, local SEO should:

Create your own contact page

Today people want more information about your business.

On the Contact Us page, 

Surname

address

phone

Add all your business addresses

If you have 10 or fewer locations, enter the full name, address, and phone number of each location in the site-wide footer element of your website.

Make phone numbers clickable on mobile devices

About 30% of mobile searches are location-based.

Therefore, it is important that your website is mobile friendly.

And 76% of local searches lead to phone calls. So make sure your phone number is clickable.

If someone finds your website on their mobile device and wants to call you, they might get annoyed that they have to switch apps to manually enter the phone number.

Add a map or location

The point of local SEO is to make it easier for people to find you, right?

So it's ridiculous that he doesn't add a map, especially when 86% of people search for her business location on Google Maps.

Add testimonials

Google considers testimonials as a signal of trust, helping people believe you are a genuine business.

This is why the Local SEO Guide has an entire page dedicated to these types of reviews.

Collect testimonials from local customers and display them prominently on your website to further enhance your local SEO.

1.Apply for an online profile – specifically Google My Business

 

Your website isn't the only thing that needs to be online.

You need to make sure your business is properly listed on major review platforms such as Google My Business, TripAdvisor, Yelp and Facebook.

Don't forget to check out your favorite local review sites.

why?

Because for local searches, Google's 3-packs often follow the following rating portals:

Google My Business

Filling out your profile on Google My Business is a good place to start. This profile allows you to manage your presence on the Google search engine.

You can improve your ranking by filling out your profile and collecting reviews (more on that later).

Request other social profiles to improve local SEO

You should also set up profiles on social media channels relevant to your target audience.

Follow social media best practices.

When setting up your profile, it is very important to ensure that the information is the same across platforms. Remember consistency is key.

1.Create local content

Blogging is essential for SEO.

Create a blog on your website, if you haven't already.

If possible, host your blog on your company's domain for optimal SEO benefits.

For example: "www.website.com/blog" instead of "blog.website.com" or "websiteblog.com".

build a link

When building your blog audience, you should also collect inbound links. A good place to start is by participating in conversations on other local business blogs.

You may want to avoid direct competition, but are there any complementary or related business blogs in your community?

Join us by leaving a thoughtful comment or mentioning (and linking to) their posts on our blog.

Building relationships with other businesses is a great way to establish a website and get links to your blog.

know who you are tagging

It's very difficult to create relevant and valuable content if you don't know who you're writing for. So, once you've created your reader personas, you need to understand your target area and its demographics.

Nielsen created an excellent tool called Zip Code Lookup to help with this.

Just enter your zip code and get information like median income, age, and consumer spending.

1.Customer reviews boost local SEO

 

Before the internet, it was easy for unscrupulous companies to manipulate their branding to trick their customers.

Fortunately, the Internet puts great power in the hands of consumers. Now everyone can quickly see if you're as good as you say you are.

Research shows that 81% of his users read reviews and check ratings, and more than 1 in 3 of his consumers comment on his blogs and his forum posts online.

Create a local SEO citation

What exactly is a citation?

They are references to your company name, address, phone number, or website (NAP+W) without a link to your website.

Citations are important for local SEO efforts. These signals account for 11% of the local pack ranking factor.

Make sure you only build citations for real physical locations, as P.O. boxes and virtual offices are not acceptable.
You can build a unique set of citations for every physical location you have.

But make sure the name, address, phone number, and website URL are correct and identical on each citation you build.

Local Search Engines

Search engines like Google or Bing crawl the web for citations to validate or update the information in their own indexes.

You can help search engines do this by listing your businesses on sites like Yelp and Hotfrog.

Dedicate some time and resources to making sure your business is listed in as many relevant, quality local business directories as possible.

Locally Focused Directories

Like local blogs, local directories are strongly associated with a geographic area and they’re well-indexed by search engines.

Directories edited by a human are preferred.

This is because they’re less susceptible to spam, so they tend to be more trusted by local search engines.

Industry-Focused Directories or Blogs

You can also gain citations from industry-focused blogs and directories.

These websites are focused on topics and keywords related to your products and services.

Although these sites don’t always have a local focus, they may be counted as citation sources by local search engines.

Do you have a membership directory for your trade organization or a blog that’s popular among readers in your niche?

Both are likely to be crawled by the local search engines for citations.

Local SEO: Conclusion

Fighting to climb the SERPs can be tough for businesses, especially if you’re a small business with limited resources.

But local SEO is critical to your business success.

As people rely more on search engines and online reviews to find what they need, you have to boost local rankings to get found online.

So climb the local SERPs by optimizing your website, producing great local content, acquiring citations, and earning reviews.

Don’t limit yourself to technical local SEO practices like citations and web optimization, though.

Build relationships with other relevant local businesses, participate in community events, and join local organizations. If your customers are other businesses, make sure you use local SEO practices for B2B.

Local SEO isn’t a stand-alone endeavor. You also need to use SEO and social media marketing to boost your rankings.

Online efforts are always a reflection of offline realities. If your business is bad, your reviews will be, too.

So, focus on building the best business you can.